Has it really been this long? Holy hell, my B. I knew It's been taking me some time just to get a chapter out, but I wasn't aware it's been this long until I saw how long the last Metal Bat doc has on here before it's deleted. Damb.

Well, I am back. Sorry about that. Chapter was going to be shorter, and the direction different, but I decided to change it up a bit for the build up to the entrance exam. This would have been less parts, probably only one too, but I thought it better to include as much as I thought I should for this one. I'd like to do two more before I move on to Warriors again, so pardon me if I take long again. Work, scheduling, mental problems and stuff took my time away from writing this out, and when I was writing this I wanted to be careful with how it went down. Wanted to get it right enough.

Don't really have much else to add then that. It's midnight, and my mind is drawing blank. Sorry. Anyways, enjoy the new chapter.

(Also, I can't wait for Dabi to actually be Midoriya's half brother and be revealed as Hisashi's other son from another woman and let that arc start alongside this OfA arc and the soon arrival and appearance of Izuku's dad to the story. What a day.)

Edit: After the first few reviews, I do have a thank you to give and decided on going through and editing the problems I could find with spelling and grammar. I apologize for having those in here and prominently as they were for me. I rushed this chapter in bits, and the four parts were basically written separately in an attempt to make sure I didn't forget what came to my head in the moment. I promise to take more care with the next chapter. And since it was pointed out, I added more dialogue and lines of text in the final part between Izuku, the two boys from his school, and the mister (in case you want to know who he is, just go to One-Punch Man's comic line. I'll state his name in the story later on when he's pressured or willingly gives it to the other characters. Or check this story on AO3, his name is in the character list there. Can't do the same here without a few more aesthetic changes.) For my explanation as it will be detailed over the next few chapters before the entrance exam, Izuku will slowly begin to dodge, divert, and eventually fight back as he gets into more fights. He did promise his mom he would learn self-defense specifically, and I decided his usual insecurities should still play a part in his actions and decisions, as it shows itself from time to time in the other parts in some way. I didn't want to jump in to him having that drive to fight when not everything has changed yet. He'll have his in-the-heat-of-the-moment...moment soon enough, and his fully aware actions in the future, I promise.

Thank you for reading and reviewing. It does help me a lot. I promise to improve for the next time.

October

Izuku doesn't remember the last time he was impatient. Or at least to the degree he was feeling lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling and idly roaming his fingers around the bat. He doesn't remember the last time waiting for so long really got to him, to the point that he couldn't think of much to do. And that was weird to say out loud knowing the list of activities and chores he could be doing. He could be at the beach, cleaning or exercising or practicing; or he could be on his computer, studying or watching videos or reading up on the hero news and theories and whatnot. But he couldn't find the energy in him to do any of that, even with how simple they all were.

He knew he had to relax in between everything he was doing, but even in that space of relaxation he couldn't find something to fill in the spae. His mind could think of the ideas of literally anything to fill in his time, but his body didn't have the driving energy to do any of it. The only thing keeping him awake and not sleeping the day off was his mind constantly running circles with second guessing. Not once did it decide on committing to an action to fill in the free time he had made in his plans.

Maybe bored was a better word for his feelings than impatient.

Izuku took the grip of his bat in both his hands and pulled it up to his chest, tapping the hilt against his ribs lightly as he stared at his empty ceiling. It was the only part of his room vacant of any decoration or furnishing and the only thing he could focus on to calm his mind and his thoughts from going everywhere.

Was this Limbo? Wanting to do nothing but trying to find something to do and the energy to do it, only to come up short and resort to staring at empty space in an attempt to quell the mind of its endless process of decision and dismissal?

Izuku closed his eyes, sighing and sitting up in his bed, the bat sliding down to his legs. A hand rubbed over his face to wipe away the existential crisis a blank white ceiling was giving him. Of all the things that was supposed to do for him, that was not one of them.

His eyes opened to the wide smile on his wall and in an effort to look away only to find many more gazing upon him. Hero memorabilia was everywhere in his room. Not just of All-Might, but most any heroes he could name just off their slogans, as easily he could off their costumes and logos. The amount of toys and posters and figurines and comics and really everything he had of heroes probably built up into the hundreds over the years, just passing a decade by last year. His affinity and attraction to the world of heroics, and the dream of becoming one, had built most of his life growing up. He wasn't sure just how much of it he relied on since he first saw a hero in action.

And he couldn't give any of it up. He had grown up hearing the world of heroics was in the realm of impossibility for him ever since being diagnosed as quirkless. People reminded him every week, nigh every day, that a hero was something he could never become. Their words never stopped his fascination, though. No words; no bruises; no threats could turn off his affection to the heroes and what they did and who they were. Not the doctors. Not his mom. Not his classmates. Not the heroes. Not Kacchan.

Not All-Might.

In retrospect, he should have thrown out everything he had of the hero when he got home after the villain incident. While the man had saved his life, he had unintentionally backed the words Izuku had heard from his peers every day. Key word: unintentionally. Izuku had amused the idea of cleaning his room of hero memorabilia in his frustration with All-Might. But the baseball bat in his hands made him think the night he came home after the sludge villain incident, as it had at the beach. All-Might wasn't looking down at him like everyone else did. He was looking out for him. That was his intent. Without a power like his peers and enemies around him, Izuku was at a disadvantage, and to that same extent a higher risk of losing his life need he rush in to battle a villain. The heroes at the sludge villain incident had all voiced a similar sentiment—no, concern—no, issue. The heroes at the site of the sludge villain mall incident were very loud and angry with Izuku. Their words didn't come off as equally concerned as All-Might's had, even though his, too, were less than encouraging to tell the young Midoriya to move on.

But all the same, Izuku couldn't believe All-Might to have meant any ill-intent by his words. He was just trying to be a hero, doing what he thought best. And he thought Izuku was safe with a life better fit for someone without a quirk of their own. That was what Izuku concluded of the hero's intentions. He was just trying to look out for a life. All the heroes were. All of them were just looking out for his life.

Even if that meant crushing his dreams.

Izuku dragged a finger down the bat.

They hadn't crushed enough.

Maybe, had Izuku listened, he would have put aside his hero collection and focused elsewhere. But his dream hadn't died that day. His desire hadn't shriveled away and rot to nothing. The world of heroics didn't get away from him fast enough to keep on clinging.

"I'm thinking realistically now," Izuku spoke out loud, eyes drifting slowly to the poster at the foot of his bed, the poster of All-Might, staring back at him. "I'm thinking and I'm doing. I can keep my dream and act in reality. I don't have to do one or the other. I'll do them both to become a hero." The space that were All-Might's eyes stayed longer on Izuku than his eyes stayed on the poster, dropping to the bat in his lap. "I want to help people. I always have wanted and acted to help people. But I can't be a police officer. I-I mean, I could, but…You can't even hear this." Izuku's hand came up and his head dropped, meeting only to shake side to side and wipe away what was watering up.

His tongue brushed over his lips. "I have to be a hero. I…Not for me, not entirely. I'm-I'm doing this for me, but I'm also doing this…for you." The bat was leaning against his shoulder, close enough for him to drape an arm around it. "You…you said you smiled because you're afraid, right? Y-you have to smile, all the time. It's for the best, right? Then…then so is me and what I'm doing." His eyes blinked and darted back to the poster, just the one specifically, of the hero standing with arms flexed and fists resting against his hips, blocking out the words behind him that were supposed to read I AM HERE. "You do what you do to fight bad people…I-I want to do the same, even if the people or what I'm fighting for isn't the same. I want…I don't want them to be right." His lips pursed as he swallowed wet air. "I don't want Kacc…Katsuki to be right…What he does is wrong and I-I don't want him – I don't want anyone – to think what he does or-or says…is right.

"So I'm doing this for him, too, same as I'm doing for you." His hand tensed and gripped the handle of the bat. "To tell you you're wrong. To tell you I can be a hero. To tell you anyone could be." The bat rose from his lap, circling slowly overhead until it pointed an inch away from All-Might's face. His eyes did the same, both fierce and fighting back tears. "I'm going to be a hero. Just like you. Because I need to be one. I'm not backing down from this." In his words of fire Izuku stayed, eyes locked on to the poster's. And then he faltered. "Would you even be proud of me?"

Do I even want you to be?

Weekends were lonely for Izuku when he was out of the house. Ojiro he only ever saw every other weekday, and Iida on the days between. But he saw neither and no one other than his own mother on the weekends. He alone moved trash and metal off the beach, dumping everything he could get off the ground in their respectable piles.

It felt tedious to do it alone, but it felt reassuring to do all the while. To know at least something was being done right. To pitch in what help he could to society. To be at least something, even if no one was watching. Eyes were always on him when it mattered the least, but it never felt that way when it did matter. It would probably be forever until he had a name of someone for people to even look to. Years, even, by his luck.

Until then he had an army of trash to figure out.

Izuku circled a fridge with slow steps, his bat guarding the space between him and it. The household appliance was one of the few that stood outside of a pile of trash so its presence on the beach was always the clearest and the most distracting whenever he came around. He couldn't move it on his own. He didn't have the strength in his body to carry it about. If he hoped to move it on his own at all, he would have to take it apart piece by piece and move it all when it was lighter.

Only it smelled really weird and sometimes it looked like it had been moved or it moved and Izuku didn't trust touching it.

His bat tapped lightly against the door, pushing against it but making no ground to move it from its spot. Either he would have move it or it would have move on its own accord. Izuku wasn't sure which of the two would happen first. Or which sounded more likely. What he did know was how to swing his bat, and with the small devices he practiced with he knew his aim was getting better in that ballpark (Izuku was really proud of the pun).

When a minute or two had passed, and the fridge showed no sign of reaction or movement, Izuku backed away with a sigh. With one concern pushed to the side for another time (he would catch that contraption in the act one day) he moved back to the wagon, sitting atop the stairs waiting to move on. He carried on up the stairs, bat in hand, and soon the handle of the wagon was in the other. And then he was off on the streets, scrap metal in tow.

Over the near four months he spent at the beach, Izuku hadn't made grand changes to the building trash piles it sported. He chose to focus one pile at a time, after he removed the small spills of trash dotting about the sand, of course. For the most part, it was trash through and through. Little to be recycled, most of waste that needed to be thrown away, all until only the two mountains remained. Of those two piles, Izuku spent his time with one of them, taking what he could manage with his growing muscle mass and loading it on the wagon to drop someplace that wasn't in the way. Said pile had yet to drastically diminish in size but Izuku could see how much height it had lost. He could tell he was making a difference, even if the results were still very small.

The walk to the dump was quiet and lonely. No one had bothered talking to him, passing him by with a careful eye or just watching him from across the street. The houses he passed never had someone coming or going on the weekends, not that he knew why. It was odd not to have anyone say anything, given he's a kid with a baseball bat, a wagon and a bunch of junk walking in one direction or the other, but still no one did. Probably for the better, since it meant getting around quicker and throwing more trash away in a day than if he stopped to chit-chat with someone.

The only person who had ever talked with him was a man who worked at the dump, Seisōfu, who questioned what a kid with a wagon and trash was doing there, and since their first encounter never talked to Izuku again other than a distant hello as he worked. Izuku greeted him back, but he could tell quick enough that the man wasn't keen on conversing, and instead using his octo-armed, enhanced strength quirk to sort and dispose of the trash around him while keeping his fit form (Izuku wondered if each of the four arms on either side of his body actually had increased physical capabilities, if it effected the entirety of his body and gave him substantial strength to more than just his arms (which would make sense given the weight of a car over his head had to be supported somehow), or if he was just that strong thanks to having that many biceps).

Sorting the trash into their respective piles didn't take too much time in his day, given he could only move along so much with his basic strength, and going back every time got him familiar with the position of each pile. He was slowly moving more and more trash, at least by the number of trips he made back and forth increasing every week. The knowledge gave him the hope that the day he fully cleaned that beach was coming closer with his efforts. He would have accomplished something good. He would have done something worthy. He would have proved his worth as a person.

When the wagon was empty he took his stroll back, easing his arms by his side since lifting so much in one go – it was smarter to take one item to the piles at a time but that was too slow to sorting everything in the wagon and taking as much of one trash type to their piles in one go worked better (Izuku couldn't find a better way to word that, sue him) – was a workout of its own atop everything. As it was supposed to be. The bat still perched itself in the arm opposite of the wagon. He didn't want that to be stolen when he wasn't looking. Actually, he didn't want it to be stolen at all. Keeping it close felt reassuring.

And the walk back was quiet as well. He was left to muse in his thoughts as he always appreciated, but that didn't quell his feeling of absence. While he enjoyed the peace from scrutiny he had away from school and surrounded by trash at the beach to deter most people, the lack of their presence and judgement was missed all the while. Or not missed, per say, but with the scrutiny missing, things felt different. Off, but not bad. That was probably the feeling of peace.

Had Izuku found peace? Had he found his time of calm days down the road to happiness eternal? Izuku looked out across the trash piles and the beach and the waves and the skyline as he stopped atop the steps. Not a voice around in the air, not a squawk from the bird over the sea; only the faint revving of engines behind him and the flowing tide sounded in his ear. All the familiar voices and words and taunts and feelings were nowhere to be seen. No one but himself and peace—

"Holy cow! This is paradise?!"

Izuku tensed and stilled, eyes widening to the water as the peaceful smile he was making shrunk slowly. The sound and blow of heavy breathing (?) passed his shoulder from the city behind, and his head turned to look over bat and shoulder to the person standing inches behind him. His eyes blanked on the goggles, pink tentacles of hair and the mouth agape in awe and joy as the girl (can confirm) practically looked past him to judge the beachfront he faced, turning head left and right towards each ends of the shore before truly focusing on Izuku. The targets on the goggles bore into Izuku's emerald eyes, one face shining bright with a smile with the other frozen cold with flat lips.

The teen Midoriya licked his lips unsteadily as his mouth opened. "U-u-uhh…hi?" he piped up, only to be meted by the scopes of the girl's goggles darting towards his own.

"Hi!"

Izuku (did not (you weren't there so you don't have proof)) screamed as he jumped back and away from the teenage girl, lucky to hit his back against the railing from the sidewalk and not trip down the stairs an inch away. His bat bounced to his other hand, which gripped the object tight as the other hand clawed over his heart. His breath moved out as gasps, heaving his body as his mind caught up to the reality of a person moving to him as fast as they did.

The girl seemed unperturbed by his heart attack, still standing and smiling and shining bright in her composure. Her look hadn't even stayed on Izuku, turning and facing the trash now behind him. "Amazing," was her first word moving forward. "So many parts – so many tools – just left unattended and unused and for the picking." Her feet carried her past Izuku, bouncing down the stairs as said boy paced out his breathing. "How could I not have known of this place before?"

Izuku struggled to keep his eyes following her movements as he stumbled down the steps after her, watching on as she darted between the piles gushing over and prodding various devices and metal craftwork items with her tools. Where the heck did she come from? How long had she been behind him? Did she know who he was? 'Paradise'? This? Was she making fun of him for being here? What was even going on?

His eyes closed again, palms pressing to his temple, groaning and pushing his hair around with his fingers. Calm down, Izuku. You're overthinking again. This is nothing. Nothing is going to happen. Everything will be fine. Just calm down. He paced his breathing again, counting the seconds between each before his arms dropped back down to his side to hang with the bat. He opened his eyes slowly again, repeating to himself, Just…calm…boobs.

Izuku blinked with a blank mind as he noticed the human torso placed before him. He looked to the boots dug into the sand, up the baggy and dirt-stained pants above them, to the wool-stripped tank top, past the human skin poking out if it, to the face in front of his. The goggles of scope sights were no longer at his eye level, now placed further up the head, and in their previous place sat the girl's yellow eyes of the same pattern. They blinked at him and he blinked at them, his stale lips doing nothing to mirror the girl's smile.

A hand shot forward, nearly hitting Izuku in the chest had he not flinched and stepped back. The open limb stayed stretched out to him, and the girl's smile stretched wider with it. "Hello! I'm Mei Hatsume! It's a pleasure to meet you!"

The young Midoriya eased down slowly, finger relaxing and bat lowering (had he lifted it to defend himself?) as his eyes darted between the hand and the girl's complexion. "Uhhhh…H-hello…" His hand moved to take it in greeting, only it snapped back to the girl's side as she took an almost heroic pose with the hands on her hips.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting to meet you, Metal Bat!" Izuku blinked in processing the nickname, but Hatsume continued on. "You have no idea how long I've been digging through Seisōfu's dump for parts for my babies only to find such low quality scraps lying around his place! Until, just a month ago, I went in for scraps for my weekly project and find a Toshiba M-454 Stereo VHS Cassette Recorder still in one piece with a top just the size of a plating my baby needed to be finished! Sure, the internal wiring was broken to the point that it couldn't play any of the videos my parents had from their wedding but they already have a fully functioning VCR player that I'm not allowed to touch, but that's beside the point. But then! I come back next week, and what do I find? A Ninja brand Coffee Bar 10-Cup Coffeemaker in near mint condition with its button control system still in-tact and reprogrammable for my Hydro Jet baby's drone mode testing! There's never anything that good with that old man's junkyard! I asked him where he had gotten all this junk from, and he told me this boy about my age has been coming in on the weekends constantly dumping whatever he had to bring with him to the junkyard, but he didn't know any more about the boy so I had to do some digging of my own! I was going to confront you last weekend but my parents had to drag me out of town for a convention for a father, so I left behind a camera to watch over the entrance while I was gone, and when I got back the day after reviewed the footage and saw you—" she punctuated the word by pointed directly at the still Midoriya "—towing behind you all this trash early in the morning, but then you kept coming back throughout the day, and then by noon you were silent for a good hour and then came back with spare parts and devices behind you, and I knew it was you!

"You've brought over some of the best materials for my projects I don't already have back home for the prototypes, and I've been wanting to ask you where you've been getting them all from and why you're throwing them out and not recycling them into something else, but now I know. This place is amazing!" Hatsume swung her arms in both directions as she spun on her heels for dramatic effect. "All these scraps, spare parts and materials free for the taking to put into use for my prototypes! All thanks to you!" She turned back to the boy with the baseball bat. "I can get to work on so many of my babies with all this junk! I'll have all the babies I need to graduate and enter Yuei!"

Izuku blinked slowly, hand cupping the bat against his leg. She has babies? She's my age, how does she already have…oh…wait, she's going to Yuei too? She's using children to get in?

He gulped in the air around him for one large breath as his eyes focused on hers (eyes, eyes, eyes, and stay on the eyes). "U-umm…I-I'm not sure I f-f-f-follow…you-you're babies?"

"Yes my babies!" she announced, stabbing a thumb to the skin of her chest. "All my creations are my babies, even in their prototype stages! From my first stage Hover Boots all the way to my stage seven Grapple Gauntlets, my inventions are going to make me the most well-known inventor in and out of Japan, all over the world!"

Air escaped his lungs in reassurance. "Oh thank godI MEAN—" Izuku coughed into his hand and shuffled in place. "A-ah…you're…also going to-to Yuei?"

"Of course I am! It's the most famous school all over the world! Going there puts you in the eyes of everyone who doesn't! What better place to go to than the front stage itself?"

…Oh, Izuku hadn't thought about it like that. Yuei was well-known all over the world, thanks to the amount of heroes and inventors and other famous quirked people over the years who had graduated from their specifically. All-Might himself had drawn in a horde of eyes to the school after he revealed his own status of graduation from the hero school. Its students, without a doubt, were the center of attention for all other schools and students aiming to become heroes. If Izuku was accepted in, that would mean he would be a center of attention.

That was…unsettling. Not unusual, but it meant that he would either be praised for being the first registered quirkless student of the most prestigious school in all of Japan – in all the world when it came to its heroics programs – or the belittlement would only worsen due to his lack of abilities and pace with the rest of his classmates actually striving and achieving the status of working heroes. And that was only if he could pass and gain attendance to the school as a student at all, with his luck.

"What about you?" The voice of the pink haired girl drew Izuku out of his contemplations and back to the girl, now standing in one of the piles of trash and examining a microwave. "You've been hogging all this future weaponry to yourself so you've got to have something planned for it all!"

"Oh, umm…A-actually, I'm…" Izuku licked his lips. "I'm t-training to be a h-hero. I'm…I'm going to Yuei as-as well."

Hatsume's head snapped so quickly in his direction, Izuku swore he could hear her neck break. "You are?!" She darted out of the pile back to him so fast Izuku only had enough time to realize she was making way back to fold in on himself and stand his ground in hope not to take too bad a hit. Lucky for him she skidded to a stop just short enough not to tackle him to the ground. Unlucky for him, oh god she's against me and I can feel them and oh god what did I do to deserve this why is she so close is this the sweet embrace of death?

"This is perfect then! I'll be going into the Support Department of the school's programs, which means I get to build and I get to build for the heroes! You'll get to test out all my babies and perfect them for mass distribution to all the heroes!" The sparkle in her eyes were nice to see despite the internal struggle of Izuku's mind not to react to her because why are they soft and why won't she back away? "What's your quirk, Metal Bat? I can make any gadget to benefit and play off your quirk, just tell me what it does and you'll have it!"

The feeling of a girl against him disappeared, as did every other feeling in his body as his eyes paused on hers. His quirk…was it worth lying about that? Could he get away with it? Should he try to get away with it? Aw, who's he kidding? He's aiming for the same school as he, and he'd only get away with the lie if he failed the entrance exam while she passed, but holding that up for three years together, and letting her know half a year in advance because of this beach and his actions to clean it up? No way could he do that.

"I, ah, I…quirkless." His lips curled together and his eyes blinked back to life as he let the words sink into her ears. "I'm quirkless."

He could see the second her sparkle faltered, and he continued to watch on in surprise as the shine of her eyes grew with her smile and posture. "You are? That's perfect!" He shook as she shook him, hands gloved and clasped to his shoulder as she talked. "If you're quirkless, then that means you could benefit from nearly all my babies! You can use them to their fullest extent because you'll have nothing else to rely on to do their job! You can be the mascot to show all my beautiful babies to the world to know who I am!"

('Because I have nothing else to rely on'? Was that an insult? Am I insulted?)

Hatsume released Izuku and left him to shake in place all on his own, marching past him and back up the steps with a cheer. "This is going to be fantastic, I can feel it!" As she reached the top both teens turned around, Hatsume facing down the steps and Izuku facing up. "Machamp says you come by every weekend? Then I'll see you next week! I have my own babies to attend to thanks to what you just dropped off, and I'll make sure to take more you continue to bring over! See you Saturday, Metal Bat!" And then she was off.

Midoriya stared still at his wagon at the top of the steps sitting alone. His fingers fiddled with the handle of the bat and he blinked ever so slowly. "…I didn't get to tell her my name." His eyes came closed as he sighed out the tension of his body and fell backwards to the sand.

Izuku made sure to smack his hand against the mat as he came down. The sound bounced off the walls but no one really payed it any mind. Everyone was in their own drills, and hearing his classmates hit the mat rung in his ears too. Mashirao kept his grip on Izuku's arm to help him back up, both stumbling back into their stances as they moved again.

Izuku threw the slow punch, intentionally as instructed so, and Mashirao parried it away. The back of his hand followed Izuku's punch back and the tailed boy's foot shot forward. His hand wrapped under the green boy's fist and his foot behind the other boy's, and the two limbs moved in opposite directions back towards the center to push Midoriya back to the mat below their feet. As Izuku's foot swung up, his fist rolled back, arm bending at the elbow now pressed against Mashirao's shoulder to trap the shorter boy in his hold.

His hand hit the mat again, and a gust of his breath went with the sound of the slap. But he smiled anyways, signaling to his classmate and friend that he was fine. Mashirao smiled back and pulled his friend back onto his feet, and the two took to their stances again, ready to carry on their practice.

"Stop!" The two boys stilled before Midoriya could throw another punch, and so did the rest of their class. Each on took a stiff and tall stance, turning to face their instructor as she looked out to each of them from the edge of the mat. After a minute of pause, she nodded. "Two minute water break."

Each of the students bowed from the waist, a quick few seconds, each sounding off with a, "Thank you, sensei," before returning their heads above their shoulders and walking off the wat to get a drink.

Izuku stayed in place, softening his breath as his hands drummed his noggin lightly. His eye dragged along the floor, counting the pieces of mat that made the flooring they trained on. His thoughts rolled absentmindedly in his ears, the most recent of notable events on replay. Curls wrapped around his fingers, her voice and demeanor and proposition and promise/demand under review.

A mass bumped into his side, drawing his eyes down to the fluff of blond hair shaking beside him. He followed the stem of flesh it stood atop behind him, trailing back and around to the boy it belonged to staring at Midoriya and motioning him along. Izuku smiled back at his friend and followed the tail along as it curled back to his owner making way to the corner of the room.

"You feeling okay there, Midoriya?" Mashirao questioned, watching his friend as his hands worked to uncap his bottle. Izuku did the same, turning his head with his body stuck in place.

"Uh, yeah, I feel fine. Why do you ask?" the green teen responded. "You didn't throw me down too hard, Ojiro."

"No, that's not what I meant." Mashirao leaned back against the wall, sipping his water for a moment opposed to his friend's longer gulp. "Did anything happen recently? You seem a bit…spaced-out, I guess."

"Oh, um…" Izuku stared at the wall instead of Mashirao as his jaw shifted to the side. "I…Yes, but it wasn't anything bad. It's not any of…that," he waved a hand with wrist in place between the two boys, "stuff, I promise. Just weird, I guess?"

Ojiro flicked himself back to his feet, tossing his bottle to his tail and using that to place it on the ground. "Define weird," Mashirao went on, lifting his chin up and flattening his lips. "I know it's different for you than it is for me."

Izuku almost (almost) spat out his water as his head jutted forward and placed his water bottle back on the ground, crouching after it to recap it. "Oh, r-right." Izuku wiped his jawline clean as he followed after his friend and classmates back onto the mat. "I just, um, met someone. Overt at the beach."

"Oh, you did? That's cool. Did Iida meet them too?" Mashirao took into a fighting stance again, doing as their instructor told them to continue their takedowns and falls. Izuku did the same, bringing his hands up with dancing fingers in front of his face.

"No, Iida didn't meet her. I-actually, I haven't been seeing Iida on the weekends. He's only coming over some days on the week. He even told me he was there when I wasn't, last week. Thought the shoreline was still a good place to go for his running routine."

Mashirao approached with the punch this time over, and Izuku followed through to dodge. His hand and foot moved in opposite directions, taking place and hooking around Mashirao's fist and foot respectively, and then pushed back towards the center. But Izuku took it slower, taking his time to drop Ojiro carefully as to not drop him where it would hurt his tail, and at the same time working to position his partner's elbow against his shoulder to ease the takedown. Ojiro did his part, falling with it and using his tail as a spring to slow his fall and shift his body to fall safer.

"She?" Mashirao voiced his question for confirmation, receiving a nod from Izuku as the green boy helped him back to his feet. "What was she doing at the beach?"

"She followed me there." Izuku let Ojiro's hand go as the boys found themselves both on their feet, backing away slowly back into their stances. "You, uh, remember what I'm doing there?"

"Cleaning up?"

"Yeah, well, apparently, she found out I was. Apparently, she's a mechanic of some sort, and a lot of what I was dropping off at the dump that wasn't trash or completely broken was still useful for her to take apart. I think." Mashirao punched again, and the two boys flowed through their practice again.

"You think?" Ojiro asked as he was lowered to his back.

"Uh, we didn't exactly talk. She kinda just came over and ranted and left." Izuku crouched after Mashirao until both were on the ground, the former on a knee. "I barely remember everything she said, but I'm pretty sure she said she was a mechanic." He rose to his feet, pulling his partner up with him. "Apparently she's using the junk to build…prototypes of sorts. I can't remember what any of them were called. Sorry."

"Eh, it's fine. Not sure I need to know them anyways." Mashirao raised his fists back to his jaw. "So, new friend?"

"Not…entirely." Izuku's form faltered for a moment. "I didn't so much as talk with her as…listened and waited for a chance to speak. But she left before I could even give my own name, and I still know hers. I don't have her number like Iida's or yours, and I don't know where she lives or even the general area. For all I know she goes across town to that junkyard and lives nowhere close to it for me to find her again until Saturday."

Mashirao stepped forward with a punch, drawing Izuku's attention back on him and into the hand drills once again. "So," Ojiro continued on, "you're looking forward to see her again?"

"N-not really…no?" The green teen almost fell with his partner in the takedown just to hide the blush of suggestion. His friend's wiggled eyebrows did nothing to help. "I-It's not like I hated her or I do—a-and that's not to say I like her, but-but I do, it's just—"

"Nah, I think I get it," Mashirao piped up from the mat, nodding his head in unison with his words. "She's cute, isn't she?" Izuku merely ducked his head to the front of his gi as he helped his partner back up, not gracing that question with a verbal answer. On its own, however, it was enough for Ojiro to keep his teasing smile strong. "I'm messing with you, I'm messing with you. I promise. I get it. But why wouldn't you want to see—"

"She brought up the fact that the whole world will be watching us if we get into Yuei," Izuku sped through his words, cutting Ojiro's composure and sentence as the two boys stood close to one another in their practice. "That going to the most prestigious school in Japan and for heroes will put us in everyone's eyes and we're going to have so many people watching us as we become heroes, what with the Sports Festivals and the internships and the various pro heroes' names to live up to graduating from the same school as them. We're going to have all that pressure on us going forward if we want to be heroes."

"Ah…" Mashirao's lips parted from the sound he made, staring blankly ahead as he blinked. "…oh…oh, she's right." The blond boy sniffled himself back to attention, dropping his gaze lower. "That…slipped my mind, I guess. But, it's not like it's a bad thing. It's not they'll be breathing over our necks in class and out practicing, so I guess it's not too terribly bad."

The scoff from Izuku brought Ojiro's eyes back up. "Not for you maybe, but…" Izuku flailed his hands a moment before gesturing them both back at himself. "Not all of us are going in with every 'requirement' to be a hero."

Mashirao's hesitation was answer enough to his own reaction about the news and to Izuku's own comment. Or not. Izuku wasn't sure if it was catching him off guard. But the conversation was catching their attention from practice, which their instructor pushed them back into with another sequence of moves the boys were too distracted in their thoughts to catch it the first time around. The two boys trudged back to their spot, stealing a glance at their classmates in practice and took from them the gist of their routine and drill before facing one another again.

"Do you want my honest opinion?" Mashirao quipped before either boy lifted their hands, and Izuku nodded for his response. The tailed boy smacked his lips before he continued. "You'll probably handler it better than I will." The look of disbelief Izuku was giving him must has been both obvious to see and expected building up to the speech he had. "Look, it's…easy to tell between the two of us who is going to get use to everything he sets his mind to. You jumped to the beach head on, you usually go gung-ho in this class every time we move onto something knew that, honestly, if you want to be seen in the light by people as a hero you'll barge into that challenge without a moment's hesitation. Probably be the first person out of us and whoever we get as classmates to take on a villain without pause. I mean, yeah, knowing people are going to be keeping tabs on you is weird, but you do that already with heroes. And you still need to show me one of those journals. You said you have stuff on Taekwareda and I want to see those." Mashirao stabbed a finger towards his partner almost accusingly, getting a small and scratchy laugh out of the green boy to make them both smile. "If there is anyone who can go into the spotlight and take it for himself without giving it a care, it would probably be you."

"You…" Izuku rose both his fists stopping them up to his chest to clench tighter. "You really think that?"

"Yeah, don't worry too much about it," Mashirao added, tacking a pat on Izuku's shoulder as he closed in. "You'll figure out what to do."

Izuku didn't know what to do.

He knew nothing and if he did, he would have known not to spare a glance to his classmates on his walk home. Not to spend time around Teashishi and Suchīrubōn.

"Hey, Midoriya!" The green teen turned over his shoulder to the two boys stalking after him. They were blocks away from the school, finally getting out for the day so Izuku could go to the beach and keep training. But it seemed like that was going to have to wait, as two of his classmates (term applied loosely) seemed intent on confronting him today.

Izuku gulped down any premature fears and turned more to meet them in their approach. "Y-yeah?" he responded. "W-what do you need?"

"Answers." The smirk Suchīrubōn put with his words didn't do anything to help Izuku swallow. "And you're going to give them to us."

"W-w-what about?" Izuku's hands clenched the straps of his backpack, thumbs fiddling on the inside anxiously.

"The fuck do you think you're doing at that beach?"

The thumbs paused in their moves with the rest of Midoriya's body as he stared pale at the other two boys. His tongue was the only piece to move, licking his lips to keep his mouth from going dry. He...oh god he didn't want to speak. How did they know about the beach? It's so far out of their way, Izuku knew that much. He'd seen them usually take the opposite route after school, so he assumes that meant they at least lived further that way, even if home wasn't their first stop.

"W-w..." Izuku swallowed his stutter down for the moment. "What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean?" Suchīrubōn tapped a knuckle to his head, making an exaggerated face Izuku assumed was meant to mock him. "Uniken said he saw you, 'That kid with the green hair who's always muttering to himself in class,' jogging and exercising on the beach. The hell do you think you're doing?"

"W...What I'm doing..." Izuku's voice died in his throat as his chest wrenched. What did he think he was doing? He was training, exercising. It wasn't even clear that he was still doing it to become a hero. He's kept himself at least quiet if that. If they didn't know that, then why were they butting in about it?

He took a deep breath, adverting his eyes from the other boys. "I-I'm exercising. Taking...jogs and stuff. What's wrong with that?"

"The hell do you have to do that for?" Teashishi chimed in. "You're not going to become a hero - hell, what could someone like you even contribute to society? There's no reason for you to try and stay 'in shape' when you can't do anything with it."

Izuku wished he has his baseball bat, just to hold. His hands tightened on the strap of his backpack instead as his head ducked away from the other boys. What was he supposed to say? Tell them he was training to be a hero? After keeping quiet about it for the last few months so they wouldn't pick on him about it? Throw all that hard work down the drain, why doesn't he?

"That's what I thought," Teashishi sneered. "There's no reason for you to get stronger, so don't bother going back to that beach, got it."

He inhaled raggedly, the other boy's voice pricking in his ear as he swallowed down any rash emotions. "I-I'm still going b-back there. It...The beach is still covered in trash and n-no one else is going to clean it up—"

"The hell do you have to do that for?" Suchīrubōn came in swinging again. "What, you trying to do something good and useful? I doubt you've barely cleaned even an inch of that beach with your frail body. I bet I could have that place cleaned by the end of the month, and I don't need you around there to get in the way."

"I doubt that," Izuku mumbled to himself, regretting the action almost immediately.

The three boys kept in silence as Suchīrubōn stalked forward. "What did you say?" The boy asked in a deep tone, threatening the hairs on Izuku's neck.

Izuku didn't reply.

Suchīrubōn inched closer until he was within arm's reach of the green teen.

"I said," his voice rose. "What did you say?"

Izuku shook under the other boy's breath, and his mouth quivered in every direction uncertain of which emotion to push through, before once again the heat in his heart was shoved back down. He wanted to fight, didn't he? Suchīrubōn loved doing that, trying to pick on people's nerves until they lashed out just so he could fight back and prove himself superior. It worked a lot, but it didn't work on everyone, and Izuku would like to think of himself as part of that group. He didn't want to pick a fight with someone, even if said someone was up in his face about it and was as rude as Suchīrubōn was. That wasn't what heroes did. So he tried diverting the conversation instead.

"I-I don't think you'd be able t-to clean the beach in only a month," Izuku rattled off, bouncing his lips and words out fast. "There's too much junk on-on the beach and it's not just trash but also appliances and metal and heavy objects and even if your quirk turns your bones metal it-it doesn't necessarily mean you could lift everything on your own—" Izuku's words were cut short by a discolored fist crashing into his nose and sending him reeling down.

Both his hands shot over his face, cupping the small feature on the front as it bruised and bled from the sudden impact assumedly enhanced by the boy's steel bones. "The fuck you think you get off saying that to me?" Suchīrubōn all but shouted down at the green teen. "You can't do anything to begin with, so what makes you think you can be the judge of what I do? I can do everything you do and a hundred times better! Why don't you watch your tongue?"

The blood trailing his lips felt warm, probably coming from the rapid beating in his chest and the heat in his eyes as Izuku tried to push himself back to his feet. His teeth ground together under the cover of his hand, and the fire of emotions in his eyes argued with the passivity in his mind. Was this about to be his first, real fight? He needed to defend himself, right? Yeah, yeah, that rig-

Another fist came to the side of his head before he could see it coming.

"What, you think you can fight back? You think fighting back is gonna make you a hero? As if! I'm the one here with the quirk! You want to be a hero, but you can't be one with any quirk, so you can kiss that dream goodbye!" Izuku's eyes fluttered to stay open against the pounding in his head, only to watch Suchīrubōn shrug in his snark. "But hey, I got an idea: if you can't be a hero, you can be the villain. Perfect for the quirkless someone who's a waste to society!"

Izuku doesn't remember standing up, or throwing his backpack behind him, or taking the steps forward to the steel boned boy. But he is aware when he stops, when his stomach to his throat burns, and when he tells himself to stop and to not fight. That same word didn't reach the other boy, the fist to Izuku's stomach indicating such.

"Would you look at that, Teashi? A villain's trying to attack me!" There was a laugh to Suchīrubōn's words, one that stung with the unease of Izuku's head and stomach. But even the rush in his ears could let Izuku know the laugh was alone. "What do you think I should do to him?"

"Suchī." Teashishi's voice was less stable than his companion's. "Dude, I think you got him enough."

"Eh?" From his crouched position on the ground Izuku could see the turning of Suchīrubōn's heels. "What, you want me to stop? The little shit probably still has it in his head that he could ever become a hero, and you want me to let him go?"

"Look at him. He's probably already got that in his head. He knows this would happen again if he tries. You don't have to keep doing this."

"Of course I do!" Izuku's hands pulled from his stomach and pressed into his knees, sidelining the conversation before him. "Bakugou never stops when he gets going, especially when he's telling Deku to quit it with the hero act! We have to beat him to a pulp if we're going to get the message in his head! That's what he would do!"

"K-Katsuki wouldn't be dumb as you..." The two bickering boys turned their attention back to the green teen, struggling on his feet and bleeding down his teeth. His eyes flickered to stay open, but their direction stayed two the classmates in front of him. Blood trickled onto his tongue, and he kept himself from speaking before he could spit it out. "To keep going when...when he knows he's done enough." Izuku's breath moved in long, sharp bursts, filling the space between his sentences. "Any more...and he'd get in trouble...He'd ruin his reputation. Can't...can't be a hero like that."

Even blurry, Izuku could see Suchīrubōn walk up to him at a dangerously close distance, near breathing down his neck if they weren't face-to-face. "Do you want to say that again?" Even his voice was threatening in its low tone.

Izuku didn't do as the other boy challenged him. But he didn't back down from the glare he was getting from the taller boy, even though he couldn't stare straight on his own. His arms shook stiff as Suchīrubōn gripped the front of his uniform and pulled him closer to his own face.

"Do you. Want to. Say that. Again?" Suchīrubōn repeated, and Izuku repeated his silence in place of a response. His hands wanted to come up and meet the other boys, but with his head pounding doubt held them by his sides wondering if he could even do anything at all. Both boys stood breaths apart from one another, once with a fierce expression and the other a tired one. Blood slowed its decent down Izuku's chin, probably healing within from the earlier impact, but its loss did nothing to soften his half-made state to challenge his classmate's.

After the silent seconds passed, a normal-colored skinned Suchīrubōn released Izuku's uniform and pushed him back in the same motion. Izuku stumbled on his feet, but he managed to stay standing all the same. "That's what I thought," the taller boy growled. "Fine. I'll let you go. This time." He turned around and walked back towards Teashishi and continued speaking over his shoulder. "You better drop that stupid dream of yours. A quirkless shit like you won't ever become a hero."

"Yeah, and a dumbass like yourself is totally capable of being one instead..."

Each of the three boys froze in their place all too quickly. Teashishi stood on the sidelines, eyes dragging from one boy to the other. Suchīrubōn had paused with one leg in the air turning with the rest of his body back the way he came. And Izuku had not moved from his spot, and had not lowered his stare, and instead had slowly widened his eyes as his own words registered in his ears.

Even with one eye blurring his vision from the second punch, Izuku could still see. Izuku could see the closer teen's skin alter from underneath from his quirk's activation. Izuku could see his face contort into a snarl and burning eyes as he stomped over. Izuku could see his mouth bounce with slurs and threats his buzzing ears were still working to process.

Only Izuku couldn't see when someone else took the boy down three steps short of attacking him.

It took Izuku a blink (which did worsen his vision for a few seconds how hard did he get hit again was there a bruise and bump to show where Suchīrubōn had hit was he losing more blood) to register the taller body now before him, standing between him and the down classmate groaning on the concrete. Izuku took note immediately of the man: stature, tall and eased with a slight lean to his right side: attire, of grey sweatpants and a tight, black, long sleeved shirt sticking to his muscled form beneath: hair, snow white and probably gelled and worked into a V-shape shooting backwards on his form: face...turned away from him.

"Suchī!" Teashishi cried out in worry, stumbling forward to assist his classmate, but skidding short when the man's head rolled on his neck to face him directly.

(Teashishi is afraid of him. Is he a villain? Does his quirk work with his eyes to paralyze those he stares at? Would there be a limit to how he paralyzes someone? Does he have to look directly into their eyes to—)

"The fuck, man?" Suchīrubōn groaned and yelled from his place on the ground, facing up to the man and the sky. "What was that for?"

(If it was a paralyzing quirk, Suchīrubōn would be on his face. He would have tripped over in his momentum. Paralysis wouldn't have reversed his motion. Does he have a speed quirk then? He took Suchīrubōn down fast, and he may have done something in the instant to stop Teashishi in his tracks. Speed quirks of that caliber are unheard of though. I didn't see him move a muscle. What could he have done—)

"You were picking on a kid," the man spoke, and Izuku started taking more tabs. His voice wasn't that deep, so he wasn't that old in comparison to what Izuku thought. It wasn't gruff or scratch as though he meant to intimidate. It didn't waver or drop in pitch from word to word. It was loud and flat and riddled with confidence not even the other boys carried in their words against him. Only it lacked the emotion they— (Wait, he's here to defend me? Is he an underground hero?) "You have better things to be doing with your day. Go home."

"This doesn't concern you," Suchīrubōn snarled up in an attempt to intimidate.

"It shouldn't happen in the first place." The man's voice never wavered, showing no sign of success on Suchīrubōn's part. "Now leave. Stop bothering the kid and go home."

Suchīrubōn snarled as his skin discolored again, the iron of his blood expanding over his bones, as he pushed himself up to face the man. He moved an inch up, before he was shoved back down again. Like his entrance, the man moved too fast to see it all happen, but Izuku could assess what he did as the man's hands trapped Suchīrubōn's arm to the ground by digging his own fingers into the concrete, placing a knee over his chest, and holding a knife hand by his ear aimed for the teen's face. Izuku couldn't tell from Suchīrubōn's expression if he saw it either, but the fear across his face was obvious enough because of his position.

"You're bothering me." A shiver rolled over Izuku from the dry words of the man and the watering eyes of the teen trapped below him. The air around them had changed, and Izuku was no longer sure the man was there just to help him, if at all. "Do you not want to go home?" But Izuku acted as thought the man was there to help.

The threat woven into those words got him to step forward. Izuku stumbled in his step, but his approach was still made and intent, and the scuffing of his shoes against the gravel garnered the attention of the man just slightly to tilt his head in Izuku's direction. Not enough to show his face but enough to hint his attention was on the green teen.

"D-Don't...don't hurt him." His voice was slurred, nausea and fear doing their best against him, but they came out audibly all the same. "P-please..."

The man turned his head more, showing Izuku half of his lean feature and yellow dotted eye that made the left side of his face. Izuku blinked, and the man did not. Nothing about his gaze felt threatening. It looked more puzzled than it did fear-inducing. The man said anything to follow, and it seemed neither Suchīrubōn nor Teashishi had any courage to do something of their own, so Izuku continued. "It-it won't s-solve anything to hurt...him too."

The young man kept his eye trained on Izuku for a moment longer before looking down at the kid beneath him. With a sigh either of exasperation or need, the man rose to his feet, sliding his fingers out from the road and removing his knee from the boy's chest. With a swipe his hand gripped Suchīrubōn by the collar of his shirt and effortlessly tossed the teen into his friend further to catch. The two boys shivering and gulping looked back to the man as the composed themselves. "Leave. I don't want to see your faces again."

They did. Izuku watched in slight amusement as the boys contemplated yelling their responses, but the two kept to themselves as they turned and ran off around the block. He and the man stayed still, watching the corner in wait for the two boys to come back around with company, or to steel their stomachs and come back with their own will to stand up for themselves. They did neither.

The man turned around to face Izuku, allowing the teen to take in how he looked. Yellow eyes, young facial features, eyebrows to match his hair, and an expression on the verge of doubt and disbelief looking at Izuku. "You do realize your nose is bleeding," he commented flatly, prompting Izuku to wipe a finger across his upper lip. Fresh, wet blood stained his hand and the young teen hissed under his breath as he stumbled to turn around and dropped to his backpack for tissue. "S-sorry about that, mister," he fumbled out his words, pushing books out to reach the tissue packet stuck below them.

"You're bleeding out your own nose. What are you apologizing for?" The man looked either way before walking closer to Izuku. The boy flinched at the approach but did nothing as the man patted him on the back. "Get out of the street. Someone might run you over."

With a moment to notice Izuku was doing just that and dumping the contents of his bag about, the boy blushed and stuffed the tissue in his nostril and pushed books back into his bag. The man picked up a few more for him and guided the stumbling boy off the street and to the nearest bench to sit him on. Izuku fixed the assortment of textbooks in his bag, taking from the man what he handed over to help the teen, until his bag found itself organized once again. He sighed in relaxed relief knowing all of his supplies were safe, and turned to the man sitting atop the back of the bench…

Flipping through his hero notebook.

"Did you write this yourself?" the man questioned, skimming through page after page without so much as a glance to the slow dropping of Izuku's expression. "You have a lot of notes in this thing. You must really know your stuff about heroes." The book was swiped out of his hands in a moment's notice. The man made no notion stop the blushing Izuku as he took it back and all but shoved it between the books and clicked his bag shut. His yellow eyes dragged across slowly to the boy huddled against his bag, the blood covered part of his face hidden from view. The man let out a chuckle of a laugh as his hands dropped to hang off his knees, leaning forward in his spot. "Not keen on sharing that stuff?"

Izuku's hands gripped the handles of his bag for a moment longer before he eased himself off his bag. "S-sorry," he muttered out, not raising his head to meet the man's eyes. "They're just…notes I take sometimes, in case the heroes do something new. They're nothing special."

"Really?" The man's voice doubted Izuku as much as the man did. "You keep yourself up-to-date on all the heroes? That's kinda impressive. Been meaning to keep up with them."

"R-Really?" Izuku darted an eye up to the other man, whose gaze had shifted away to look forward.

"Yeah. Been trying to come across one myself. Kinda hard to get time with a hero, isn't it?"

"Y-you…" Izuku's eyes adverted to the street. "You're not…a hero?"

The man let off a scoff to that, turning his smirk into a small frown. "Nope," was his resounding answer. "Haven't become one."

Izuku's eyes scrolled to the small holes in the pavement, left behind by the man sitting beside him. "You…you stepped in to help me."

The man looked back to the teen sitting lower. "You say that like it isn't an obvious thing to do. Besides…reminded me of something I've seen before. Didn't want it going through this time."

"What…oh." Izuku's hands found each other, rubbing the nerves over his knuckles. His head ached a bit, and his eyes felt better to flutter, but he didn't find himself passing out just yet. Must have been worse for the other kid…

"Yeah. Kids can be the worst, even when they grow up. Some at least grow up when they're supposed to, actually try to be the things they tell other people they want to be." He paused, fingers rolling for a brief moment in between. "Like quirkless kids wanting to become heroes."

Izuku's head snapped to face the man, the whiplash hazing his sight for several seconds following. When it did return, the agape expression he had only deepened to the stranger. "Y-you-you heard t…that?"

"It's what I walked in on." The man's voice didn't waver. "Didn't think I'd have to jump in when the kid with the stone hair told the other boy off. Kid's got hell of a skin problem though?"

Izuku blinked past his confusion, like the man has spoken past his quirklessness. "B…Y… Suchīrubōn?"

"If you mean the kid that was punching you, yeah, that punk."

The green teen curled inward at that, dropping his gaze momentarily. "I-It's his quirk: Iron Skeleton. H-he uses the iron in his blood to c-coat his bones, turning it from the element to-to the mineral. The skin coloring is…makes sense, since he's affecting his blood as much as he is his bones when he uses it."

"He actually tell you all that?" Izuku shook his head to the man's question, a bit too fast for his head to be okay with before it fought back against him.

"I-it…" Izuku flicked his head from the pounding on his brain, attempting to push it aside. "Not hard to figure it out after hearing the name and seeing it a few times."

"Figured it out all on your own? How long did that take?"

"8 minutes." Izuku cupped one hand in the other, blinking until he only saw one of each. "Name helped a bunch. Probably would have taken an hour just to figure out what his bones were becoming underneath all the muscle fibers without being explicitly told."

"Well damn. I probably would have done that." The man's gaze adverted again. "So why did you tell me to stop?" Izuku licked his lips with a nervous shiver, but the man continued on. "Did you even try fighting back? They did say you wanted to be a hero. Heroes usually fight back."

"They...I know." Izuku's fingers dragged further down to his wrist, circling for a secure hold. "I didn't...think it'd get to-to that. And I...I just wanted to avoid a fight. It would have been worse for everyone had...had I tried to drag it on."

The man hummed softly to himself, and his own voice was hard to hear following. "Old Bang wouldn't have thought the same..."

"Huh?" The two turned their head's again, the man's yellow irises locking with the one green eye Izuku was using, before the gold eyes trailed down below the boy's eyes.

"Should I take you to the hospital? Your…" The man gestured to his own face mirroring what he saw from the teen, but it didn't register in his ears.

"I…N-no. Y-you don't need to do that, mister. I don't need to go to-to the hospital. I-I'll be fine." Izuku gave a wavering smile as best he could, flashing some of his blood stained teeth without realizing, internally hoping to get the man to smile and agree he was fine. The disbelief he saw failed half his mission.

But the man scoffed a smile anyways, hopping off the bench without much of a sound and turning on heel to face the green teen. "I should probably take you to the hospital, kid. You're going delusional."

"Wha…No! No, I'm fine!" Izuku waved both his hands in front of him in a flurry. "I'm—I'll be fine. I promise. I can just…patch this at home."

"I don't think you know how much blood you have over your mouth."

"I-I promise I'll make sure I get what I need at home. H-he didn't do that much damage to me! I promise!"

The yellow eyed man kept his blank stare with Izuku's for moments before he shrugged and turned on. "Fine, I'll let you go home. Want me to walk with you back?"

"Uh, n-no. I'll be fine, mister."

The man stabbed a thumb in the direction the two teens had left in. "If someone jumps you again?"

Izuku shook his head. "N-no one's going to. I usually walk alone this way…They went out of their way to be here. I-I don't think anyone else did too."

The man let an audible sigh escape his lips. "You're really persistent. Fine, I'll let you be." Forward he went, opposite the two boys, waving a hand over his shoulder. "Good luck becoming a hero."

Izuku wanted to jump off the bench if his bag wasn't weighing him down and his head wasn't pounding on him to stay. "W-wait, you think I can become a hero?!"

The man stopped his momentum, pausing on one foot without ever turning his head around to the other boy. It was several seconds of waiting silence before he moved again, raising his head as he pushed forward. "Yes," was the only word he replied with, announcing it without turning his head so Izuku could still hear him.

"B-but I don't have a quirk! How cou—"

"Doesn't matter." The bluntness of his words cut Izuku short. "You've got a better personality than those morons. One of an actual hero. You're qualified enough. Good luck." He turned the other corner on the block before Izuku could protest anymore, leaving the boy alone on the bench.

He looked away from where the man had gone, body easing into his position slowly. His fingers drummed pointlessly over his knees, and his eyes couldn't help but gloss over the finger indents in the road, and the small cracks around it that must have been from Suchīrubōn's fall from the man. The whole of the scenario played in his head again. A standoff between a boy with a stone quirk, one with an iron quirk, a man with super strength for a quirk, and then one quirkless boy, all with their own insults and points to make about one another.

Did he really have the personality to become a hero?